The Depths of the Edge
by LucasGodzilla
Summary: A One-Shot "What-If" Scenario: A modern world expedition team excavating the remnants of what used to be Dragon's Edge, leaving its crew confused and perplexed as to what its true history may be and the mystery behind the many artifacts left behind.


**Author's Note:** I want to clarify right now that I have never seen any episodes of the _HTTYD_ shows. All of the references I make and what not are inferences from what little research I did on the show episodes. Of course, then this would lead you probably to ask why I even wrote this to begin with, to which I can at least confidently state this: I was not a huge fan of _The Hidden World_ for a number of reasons, but its ending left me with a lot of what-if thoughts involving the future. To me, the idea of the modern world beginning to catch up with the lost history of the Dragon Riders is incredibly fascinating, and truth be told, I think there'd be a lot of potential if Dreamworks were to ever randomly experiment and try to make a new film in that direction if it ever reaches that point. But for now, all of us fans who grew up with the movies I guess have mindless dribble such as this to bide the time. If you want some mood music, I'd recommend putting on "2 & ½ Miles Down" from the _Titanic_ soundtrack. I'd like to quickly also apologize in advance if some text appears sloppily written since this was mostly just done in the span of a day without any proof-reading (I just had to get this out of my system). Without further ado, here you go I guess.

* * *

"History is how we choose to remember reality rather than reality in actuality."

These are the words Cameron lived by for as long as he could remember.

The cabin gently rocked from side to side as he blankly stared off into the distance, his mind echoing of past lectures from way back in high school and college. Lectures that serve as a constant reminder about how narrow-minded historian accountings can be due to simply the lack of different perspectives, or rather, the decision to exclude different perspectives.

Although it is an admittedly cynical mindset to go by, it was the most level-headed to Cam. It's why he got into history himself. He didn't want to hear the same stories hammered in over and over again, he craved for diversity. Travelling all over the world to different archeological sites to discover something new, something fresh, something groundbreaking even. It's why he jumped at the opportunity when he suddenly found himself taking a call from one of his colleagues that there's been an interesting discovery far off the coast of Norway.

A sudden light knock from his door stirred him from his thoughts.

"Sir, I'd just like to inform you that we are now approaching the site."

"What's the E.T.A.?"

"Approximately ten or so minutes. There may be a minor delay due to the change in weather but it shouldn't be much of an issue for the dive team."

Cam paused at this momentarily, his thoughts skimming through all of the possible disaster scenarios before mentally shrugging them all off.

"Very well. As you were."

There was a muffled affirmation followed by his growingly distant footsteps. Slipping on a pair of gloves, he stood up and proceeded to follow after his associate, only to briefly halt and make an immediate U-turn back inside to grab a beanie, which hung loosely on a nearby rack.

The first thing that immediately hit him was a gust of wind that chilled him to his core, forcing a slight shiver out of him as he made his way down the ship's deck. Being careful not to slip on the rather slick set of metal stairs, he tightly gripped on the railing, glancing out the open waters with a troubled expression.

Not only was the boat swaying quite heavily in the icy, rough waters, but with it being merely seven in the morning, the sun hasn't been out long enough to burn off the sheer amount of surrounding fog. How anyone could see anything in these conditions was beyond him, but thankfully that was the least of his worries given that he wasn't the captain of the vessel. Though that being said, he wasn't exactly filled with confidence given the number of times he stumbled in on the captain sipping a glass of brandy on the job.

"Shouldn't be an issue for the dive team," he told himself, his breath visibly fogging in front of himself, "shouldn't be an issue for the dive team."

* * *

Everything was ready. The boat had reached its destination: A dive site marked by bright reflective buoys right off the shore of a cliffside. Preliminary examinations of the site generalized it as an ancient Viking settlement of sorts, dating back to roughly over a thousand years old. Despite much of it is in surprisingly good condition for its age, there were several pitfalls that needed to be addressed. For one, it was several meters down under the sea. Another is that despite it all being labeled by local experts as being in "good" condition, that's not saying much given how little actually properly survived the elements. That being said though, no detailed inspection of the site has been conducted... until now that is.

"Alright, everything seems to be in working order, Sir!"

Cameron looks over his shoulder towards the main cabin on the upper deck. It was the main technician, Erik.

"Okay, I'm coming up!"

Trudging up the stairs case and through the main doorway, he was greeted to the sight of an elaborate setup consisting of CCTVs, a large radio and a jumble of cables and wires. Although barely anything can be seen in each of the monitors, each uniformly casting dark shades of blue over the room, Cam knew exactly what he was looking at.

"Eyes under the sea," he uttered quietly.

* * *

Holding a styrofoam cup of coffee, Cameron was intently staring at the setup, eagerly hoping for something to just show up on one of the screens. The room was silent for the most part, barring the sounds of hostile winds muffled by glass and Erik muttering in Swedish as he tinkered with the set-up to try and improve the output quality.

As though on cue, a couple of the monitors started getting fuzzy all at once, followed by the utterance of an "Ah _helvete_!" Cam merely took a few steps back, allowing Erik to lean over the mess of wires to tend. Waltzing around without anything to do at the moment, he took a small swig from his steaming drink and began to fall back into deep thoughts. However, that didn't last for long when there was a sudden crackle coming from the radio.

"ATTENTION SURFACE POINT; THIS IS DIVER UJEVN REPORTING IN; WE'RE APPROACHING THE BOTTOM; YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE SOMETHING; OVER."

Cameron immediately whipped around, slamming the now empty cup onto a nearby surface, and rushed over to the microphone to respond.

"This is Surface Point; We read you loud and clear, though we are currently facing some minor technical difficulties; Over."

"WELL YOU BETTER GET THAT CLEARED UP; YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS; OVER."

Cameron groaned as he tried to make out something from the displays to no avail. It was clear that the divers were approaching something sizable, but the monitors were too distorted to make out any details. It was then he was suddenly aware again of the rather frustrated technician in the corner.

"How soon do you think you can get this all back up again?"

"With this _bit av skit_? Not sure at this point given how much trouble it gave me earlier."

"I thought you said it worked back onshore."

"Yeah, I did, but I didn't take into account how much interference would occur given the current conditions. On the upside though, at least if topside completely fails, we've still got the source footage recorded on the helmets themselves."

Cam opened his mouth to say some minor piece of sarcasm involving expedition funds, only before he could get a word out, the radio crackled to life again.

"DIVER STERK HERE; YOU GUYS ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS BUT THERE ARE TOWERS DOWN HERE; OVER!"

Cameron and Erik both looked at each other with a confused expression before reaching over to the microphone.

"I'm sorry, but did you just say 'towers'; Over?"

"YES, TOWERS; LARGE AND TALL STRUCTURES!"

Frantically, Cam prods Erik before pointing at the wires. Getting the message, Erik rushes over to fiddle with the wiring again.

"IT APPEARS AS THOUGH THEY'VE COLLAPSED FROM THE CLIFFSIDE GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF RUBBLE HERE; ALTHOUGH MUCH OF THE WOOD HAS FESTERED AWAY; THERE ARE BITS OF METAL HERE THAT SEEM TO HAVE–SURPRISINGLY–FACED MINIMAL WEAR; OVER!"

He lightly pressed the mic against the nose of his bridge in annoyance at the current situation.

"I'm missing everything," he grumbles, only for Erik to suddenly chime in from the side, "Not on my watch."

Like clockwork, the monitors cleared up in a sudden, bright flash. The two were awe-struck, for what they saw will haunt them for a long while after.

In brilliant shades of azure, there were remnants of towers and huts littered everywhere amongst the eroded rubble of stone. Nature has certainly taken its course on the settlement, for there were schools of small fish everywhere housed by the crumbling structures. The static chatter between divers soon began to muddle up, going straight through Cameron's ears as he pressed up against the screens, ignoring everything and everyone but the hypnotizing sight of a statue in the corner of the frame. It was a statue of a large dragon.

* * *

The excavation process has already begun, as he watches the divers carefully explore the ruins. Over the course of many hours, the team was able to dig up innumerable artifacts to bring aboard the ship for proper examination, from surviving decor to tools, all of which priceless–or at least to Cameron's mind.

It was getting dark. Having already returned to his cabin, Cam swished around a small glass of celebratory wine he kept on board as he pondered as to what purpose the old place used to serve. It's clear that much of these structures must've originated from the cliffsides but that merely raises further questions.

The bizarre design choices some of the structures held were unique, to say the least. Out of all prior Viking structures Cam had come to know, he has never seen any like these. For one, they all had roosts of sorts for a lack of better terms. Then, there are bits and pieces of technology that just simply seems way too advanced for its age. It was clear that whoever founded the place was certainly a genius given the time period. Topping it all off, there's a sort of weird idolization of dragon mythology that no other settlement he's seen could ever hold a candle to.

How did they even come to be? Evidence suggests that they fell from plateaus–or perhaps the plateaus themselves fell over factoring in coastal erosion–but how did they even get to the plateaus, to begin with. The isle is considerably far out from the mainland, implying the needs of large ships of sorts but there are problems to this theory, such as the fact that there aren't any ideal docking / port areas in the surrounding waters that is easily accessible. But that being said, there are traces of shipwrecks relatively nearby–as discovered by the dive team earlier that day as they fanned out from site–that are simply unexplainable: Too far from shore to have crashed but too close to be unrelated to the settlement. Though they were unidentifiable purpose-wise given how long they've been under, they have been dated back around the same time period, having likely sunk way before the towers. Cam thought of every possible scenario but each one is unlikelier than the next, from weather to war to even scuttling.

Then came the biggest question of them all: What happened to the people? There are no traces of remains whatsoever and it appears to have been straight-up abandoned more than anything else given the lack of evidence of an actual historical disaster. But of course, it all comes back to the question: Why?

Every angle, every perspective he tries to look at it from, it all comes back with more questions. I guess in a way he got his wish fulfilled, this mystery is certainly something new, fresh and certainly ground-breaking. Snorting at the irony, he slams down the glass and exits the cabin for a breath of fresh air.

* * *

It's been a strange number of days. For one, the air of mystery never left the expedition for more and more oddities are being brought to the surface that simply cannot be explained.

The most notable case of this involved all of the metal artifacts. Normally, iron armor plates and weapons and whatnot would be reduced to mush or rusted over in the given conditions, but not the ones found on the site. On the contrary, practically all of the metal objects found were practically left untarnished by the elements. It was incredibly bizarre, and it made everyone on the expedition question whether or not the metal used was even iron, to begin with.

Of course, though, the mystery behind the metal held no candle to the mystery behind the mysterious safe.

"What do you mean you found a safe; Over?"

"I MEAN, WE FOUND A SAFE; TAKE A LOOK AT THE SCREEN; OVER!"

Stumbling towards the set-up in utter confusion, Cam's jaw dropped at the sight of it, for partially buried in the sediment of the coastal floor was unmistakably a small, metallic box.

"Good God he was not kidding," Erik bumbled from off the side.

Cameron felt a slight chill roll down his spine. Over the days spent excavating, numerous crates and chests were discovered and looted by the divers, but none of them were as particularly heavy-duty as this. It was as though it was meant to be forgotten by time.

"What secrets do you hold?"

* * *

Cameron spent much of his morning instructing the dive team as they all worked together in careful harmony to slowly dig up and raise the "safe" back up to the surface. When it was finally recovered, the clean-up crew were then left puzzled as to how to crack the thing open for there wasn't a proper handle or door as a matter of fact. The scariest thing about it was that it appears to have been welded shut for a lack of better terms. After much deliberation and hesitation, the crew decided the best way to open it is to simply cut it open with a power saw.

Sparks were flying all over the top deck as the rotating blade slowly began carefully making an incision into the ancient metal. The whole crew silently watched, their minds held in suspense for even the slightest off-movement could potentially wreck whatever is held inside. The process took a solid minute before finally with a solid thunk, the door fell off and landed onto the deck. Cam slowly crouched down and reached inside, feeling something irregular. Pulling it out, he gasped as he held it in the sunlight: It was worn, it was encrusted in silt, but what he held in his hand was most certainly and recognizably garnished lens of some sort. Passing it off to one of the other crew members, he reaches back inside and finds a second lens of equal size and shape. His hand wavered slightly as he held it in his grasp, for although he is clueless as to what they are for, he knew as a fact that it must've been incredibly significant.

Took little effort to clean either of the lenses thankfully, though the crew was unsure as to whether or not this was due to them being stored in the safe or because they were arguably sturdier than the metal they keep bringing up. On closer examination, everyone began to notice the intricate design facets on both: The ancient runes inscribed, the piercing jeweled eyes, the ornately carved design. They are both simply unforgettably picturesque.

That night, Cameron's thoughts were plagued with questions. Lying in his bed, he pondered heavily: What purpose did they use to serve? How did they use to work? Can they even work anymore? How did preliminary tests establish them as being older than the settlement? It was clear that he'll have to wait until he returns back to the mainland to answer some of those questions. Perhaps he can get them properly examined at some research institute, he could use another professional opinion.

"Fascinating," was all Cameron could say as he rubbed the back of his neck, "just fascinating."

Suddenly he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Reaching down to pick it up, he checked the caller ID only to be chuffed by the name of his colleague on it. Sitting up on the mattress, he pressed the accept button and began to speak.

"Hey, Haddock, you're going to have a Goddamn field day with this."


End file.
